Communities and forests

Globally, according to FAO figures, about 300 million of people depend directly on forests and 1.6 billion indirectly. For forest-dependent communities forests play a fundamental role to sustain their mode of living, it is their home, and nowadays most of the tropical forests that still exists results from the presence of these communities. Therefore, forest communities play a fundamental role in the conservation of tropical forests worldwide. However, these communities are often sidelined in decisions on how the forests they depend on are used. As a result, their livelihoods and often, their way of life are severely threatened by a series of direct and underlying causes of deforestation.